Amari and the Night Brothers by B. B. Alston

Published: 19 January 2021

Genres: Children’s Literature, Young Adult’s Fiction, Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Supernatural

Available as: Hardcover, E-book, Audiobook

Educators’ Guide

Summary:

As an audiobook, Amari and the Night Brothers consists of 35 tracks narrated by Imani Parks with a total length of 11 hours and 11 minutes. First book of the Supernatural Investigations series, the story begins with Amari Peters being called into the principal’s office on the last day of school and having her scholarship rescinded for physically responding to online and in-person bullying. As her summer begins, Amari Peters is grounded and her personal device is taken away as she struggles with how to continue searching for her missing brother, Quinton. She gets a mysterious delivery that leads her to join a summer camp, gain a best friend, and find her brother.

Review

“People tend to fear what they don’t understand. Fear can far too easily become hatred.” – Mr. Ware

This book reminds me of a mix of Harry Potter, Pendragon, and the 39 Clues. So, I would recommend this text to children and young adults who enjoyed any of the above series. The quote above is from the rising action of the story and touches on the topic of bias that is prevalent throughout the text. The three elements that I enjoyed were the main character, the quirky word choice, and the narrator’s voice. Through the main character, I felt I was more immersed into the text because it can be hard not to react when one is being judged by certain social identities before having a conversation. As Amari is a 13-year-old girl of colour who lives in low-income housing and a magician who has an outstanding and heroic older brother, it was quite a journey for her in the text to be comfortable with herself rather than trying to navigate the differences in expectations related to these social identities. Second, the quirky word choice and descriptions such as “press the button 26 times”, “essence of a sandy parrot”, and a suit of green and purple would catch my attention and continually re-immerse me in the audiobook. Lastly, Imani Parks, did a great job of differentiating the characters through the reading and I felt Agent Fiona’s character, other than Amari, stood out to me the most.